Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Just The Perfect Blendship

Have you ever known someone who was really nice and enjoyable to be around but drives you crazy? I have and its name is NARA. First of all, let me just say that whenever I've had to correspond with anyone at NARA (and that has been quite a bit over the last few months) I've been met with nothing but friendly, helpful people and they always get back to me with lighting fast promptness. They are also offering a wonderful service to genealogists (especially those who live on the other side of the country from DC, like me) and I try to keep sight of that. But...

I am so done with this never ending saga and if I never hear or see the letters "NARA" again I can die happy. Don't even get me started with the whole pension mess, the months of waiting, the lost order, their eServices site which always seems to be down, the Cherokee Enumeration record that bizarrely just showed up in my shopping cart one day and refused to go away, the fact that they never update my order status, that week last month where I couldn't order anything because they kept saying my address was wrong (sorry, but I think I would know better than you do where I live), all the times I've submitted an order and been given an error message only to find out that it was submitted just fine, the wrong record that was mailed to me which I now have to mail back, the fact that they still list canceled and negative orders as outstanding and in their queue, the...

Sorry, that fade out was my head exploding. In short, imagine everything that could possibly go wrong and it has probably happened to me. I think it has literally gotten to the point where they go "not her again!" whenever they get an e-mail from me. And if I had to venture a guess, they are probably as sick of me and that pesky John Berger I keep harassing them about as I am of them. And you know what? That is just fine with me, but I want the ancestors and the beach front condo in the divorce settlement.

By the way, if you don't get the title of this post (I think it summarizes things well):

2 comments:

Oh, yeah, I got the reference - and I can sympathize with you on dealing with NARA. I'm happy these days when I can get what I need from Footnote and avoid working through the website. I have to admit I've received some correct materials from them, but have also received the wrong sets of records twice.

About

I'm a 20-something, long-time genealogy enthusiast from Northern California. My paternal ancestry is mostly concentrated in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Ontario, Canada. On my mother's side, I am a 6th generation Californian, with ties further back to many of the lower 48 states.